


In Control

by ssrhpurgatory



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, During Canon, Episode: s02e02 What's Up Doc?, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26703373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory
Summary: Alexander Hilbert finds his control slipping during his second mission aboard the Hephaestus. (Alexander Hilbert's control slipped a long time ago, and he made himself a monster to get it back.)(AKA: the author keeps accidentally making herself emo during canon episodes by writing nonsense Hilbert backstory so might as well do it on purpose.)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	In Control

Even after two days of starvation, and dehydration, Alexander Hilbert is still in control. Commander Minkowski finds it infuriating, he can tell.

Perhaps that is why she is smashing his hard drives.

But he knows he can replace that data. Perhaps not the past few weeks—the pulse-beacon relay has been acting up, and he is not certain that all of his reports have made it back to Canaveral—but most of it. And the data he cannot replace, he can guess at, as long as his subject is still breathing.

And even when she turns her gun on him, he cannot find it in himself to worry. He knows that she has questions that only he can answer.

It is only when she turns the gun on Officer Eiffel that he feels his control of the situation start to slip. Because more than the drives, Officer Eiffel is Alexander’s research. Alexander can see it: all of his progress, gone and unverifiable, fading as Officer Eiffel’s life does.

“Commander…” Alexander holds his hands up, cautioning and soothing. “You do not understand what you are doing.”

“Um, could we all maybe—“ Officer Eiffel reaches towards Commander Minkowski, as if to take the gun from her, and the Commander lifts her arm, pointing it directly at Eiffel’s head. He flinches backwards, his hands upraised in surrender.

“You have exactly five seconds to make me understand or I will pull this trigger.” And she will. Alexander sees it in her face. She might not intend a mortal wound, but she was not used to firing in microgravity and Officer Eiffel could all too easily end up dead. “Going once… Going twice…”

* * *

_“—collapsed in her office.”_

_He feels his control slip at these words. “And you left her there alone?”_

_“Of course not, but—“_

_The man’s words fade behind him; he is already out the door of his lab, tearing down the stairs in a decidedly unsafe manner._

_She is sitting up against the back wall of her office when he gets there, her assistant fussing over her. There is a scrape on one cheekbone from the carpet, and the shooing motions she makes to chase her assistant off are languid in a way that speaks of pain rather than tiredness._

_He knows her well enough to cajole her into accepting his examination. He knows her well enough to ignore her irritation as she does._

_He knows her well enough to know that something is terribly wrong._

_He knows that control is beyond his grasp now._

* * *

“Okay, okay!” The words burst out of Alexander in a panicked flurry. “One question. Right here, right now. And you put the gun down this instant.”

Commander Minkowski smiles grimly at his lack of control, and holsters her gun. “Sorry about that, Eiffel. I had to make an abrupt decision there.”

Officer Eiffel looks as if he will not quickly get over his commanding officer pointing her gun at his face and preparing to fire it. “That’s… that’s all right, Commander. You gotta do what… you gotta do.”

Commander Minkowski takes a moment, her hand to Officer Eiffel’s shoulder, the pair of them communing wordlessly. She only turns to Alexander when Eiffel is breathing normally once again. “Okay. Explain. What was your mission on this ship?

Alexander sighs, releasing his own tension. How to put this in words that they would understand?

Start with the star.

“Wolf 359 has a very…” he considers his options and settles for “…unique energy signature, very different from the radiation found in other stars. I was sent here to study hiw these properties might be used to trigger mutations in various organisms, most important among them a retrovirus.”

“Don’t tell us that you’ve been trying to cure cancer.” Officer Eiffel’s tone of voice is almost amused, through the anger. Easy for him to think that Alexander’s work in this place has nothing to do with making the world better.

Alexander almost flinches at those words. No, it was no cure for cancer.

* * *

_He has to push to get the answers he needs. Eventually, she rolls her sleeve up and exposes it to his sight, knowing that he will understand what the bandage there conceals. And he does understand, but he still has to ask, not believing._

_“Cancer?”_

_Her only response is a weary nod. And then, after a silence and a labored breath, she adds “Terminal, of course.”_

_As usual, her voice is brisk and businesslike. If her impending death leaves her feeling anything, those emotions were ruthlessly exorcised long before this moment._

_He wishes that his own were so easy to control._

* * *

“Not exactly,” Alexander says. “It is a very delicate retrovirus. Manmade, codenamed Decima. Very expensive to sequence the genotype correctly.”

A deep frown forms creases between Commander Minkowski’s eyebrows. “What does it do?”

He considers how much to say, and then shrugs, the move sending his chains rattling. “In its native state? Highly corrosive. Corrupts cellular activity, dissolves vital systems at an accelerated pace. But with the right mutations…” He gestures the virus’s state of flux, a wobble of his hand. “It could actually help to restore damage, reverse degradation on a cellular level.”

* * *

_“Decima.” The word rushes out in a panicked breath, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Let me try. Decima could—“_

_“Darling, please.” She cuts him off with words and a raised hand, and then laughs, as much as the rattling noise her lungs make can be called a laugh. She comes to a wheezing halt and shuts her eyes, letting her head fall back against the wall of her office. “Do you really hate me so much, to want to kill me that way?”_

_“No!” He takes her hand in his without thinking, clutching it to his chest. “It could save you. Let me save you.”_

_She opens her eyes again, studies his face. “You don’t like me that much, either,” she says. “Don’t pretend you actually care, darling. It’s beneath you.”_

* * *

“It’s a virus that can make you stronger?” Officer Eiffel asks. His smirk leaves Alexander certain that the man is thinking of comic books and superheroes.

But if it helps Officer Eiffel understand…

“As always, you horribly oversimplify a complicated issue. But… da. It can make you healthier. It can make you… more than you are. Theoretically.” A line of bodies leaves Alexander less certain of this than he wants to be, but Alexander dismisses this uncertainty, as he always does.

Eiffel’s smirk turns into an almost laugh, a desperate relief of tension. “So why all of the big secrecy? Couldn’t you just tell us that?”

Alexander’s jaw stiffens, and he swallows hard. “Decima is… a very unstable agent. It does not do well in experimental conditions. We have yet to find an effective way to manage it in isolation. It needs an active environment to remain viable for long-term experimentation.”

* * *

_It is a moment of desperation, that has him stooping over her the way he does. A moment of desperation that leads to an awkward kiss pressed to a mouth that does not yield beneath his, to her startled breath against his lips, to her hands pushing him off of her with a strength that he did not think she still had in her._

_“Don’t,” she says, and her voice breaks on that one word, her face turned from him. “Don’t,” she says again, barely a whisper._

_He watches numbly as she pulls herself back together, smoothing her hands down the front of her blouse, rolling that sleeve back down to hide the bandage in the crook of her arm from his sight once more._

_But she does not face him again._

_“Say you want this because I know your virus as well as you do yourself,” she says into the horrible silence, strung tight between them. “Say you want this because I can give you the data you need at this point in your research. Say you want this because I’m almost all used up anyway, and might as well make good use of me while I’m here.”_

_He stares blankly at her half-averted profile._

_She does not relent._

* * *

“So you didn’t want us to know that you were keeping samples of this dangerous virus in your laboratory?” Commander Minkowski asks, that heavy frown still creasing her face.

Alexander almost smiles as he says the words. Because she will not understand why, and she will hate him for it. Officer Eiffel might, because Officer Eiffel knows why he is here and not still in prison, but Minkowski does not have that context. “No. I did not want you to know that I was keeping samples of this dangerous virus in Officer Eiffel’s bloodstream.”

Their twinned expressions of horror are almost a balm to him. Strange to think that this commonplace thing is enough for horror. What would they make of his past, if this is enough to horrify?

* * *

_“Yes,” he says eventually, because she has given him no other choice. “Yes, you would be ideal subject. For all of those reasons and more.”_

_She finally turns towards him, a twisted smile tight on her face. “Then I’ll discuss it with Mr. Carter.” He tries to stand, but her hand clenches into a fist in the front of his lab coat for a moment. “Don’t let yourself think you can save me, Dmitri.”_

_As always, the sound of his birth name on her tongue makes him flinch. “I will not,” he promises, words he cannot allow himself to mean, because if he means them it means that saving her is beyond her grasp, and he cannot imagine a Goddard Futuristics without her there, ruling over the lab complex like a despot, guiding the course of his research towards progress._

_She does not believe him. He sees it in her face. But rather than exacting further promises from him, she releases him. “Back to work, then.”_

* * *

“What?” Officer Eiffel is the first to speak, his face blank with fear, and Alexander feels the urge to reassure the man.

“Relax,” he says, and means it. The strain of Decima that Doug Eiffel carries is a tame, well-managed thing, compared to what it had once been capable of. “I have been keeping the virus dormant when I am not running an active experimentation cycle. You will be fine.” He considers for a moment, and almost smiles. “As long as you have an experienced molecular biologist on had to render the virus inert.” He turns his attention to Commander Minkowski next, states the words as unmistakably as possible. No need to be ashamed of his work. “But yes, Commander. That is what I have been doing. I have been running mutation trials on a dangerous experimental virus, and have been using our Communications Officer as an incubator.”

Her face shifts, and he can see her running the calculations, can see the gun that Alexander is now holding to Officer Eiffel’s head. Kill Alexander, and Officer Eiffel dies. Sooner or later. And as much as she would like to kill him now, Commander Minkowski is too cautious for such a risk.

He smiles for real now, his world under control, all the pieces slotted back into their proper places. And he cannot help but push his crewmates, making them aware of his control. “All right, now that is done. Is that apple still on the menu?”

Commander Minkowski glares at him for that, and he knows he has made an enemy of her in a way that trying to kill her had not.

But when she leaves the observation deck, he has the apple in hand.

* * *

_He has his chance. He does not know why it was given to him, by her or by Mr. Carter, but he makes the most of it._

_Her decay is slow enough for him to fool himself into thinking he can make a difference, and all too fast. In the end, all that is left of her is a body that is falling apart too fast for modern science to preserve._

_And then, she is gone, and he finally realizes that no amount of cleverness will bring her back._

_The feeling digs beneath his ribs and scrapes him hollow, the way it did when his sister died. All he can do in response is kill the man who killed her, lock away all the parts of himself that she shaped and make himself anew. Allow compassion without attachment, breed in himself a single-minded focus that will not allow such a thing to happen again. Look towards progress alone, and forget the lives lost searching for it, because their weight is both too heavy to bear and meaningless, in the end. Cast aside the fragility of kindness, of caring, of connection._

_Become a person who can never be hurt like that again._

_Become a person who will never lose control._


End file.
